MMOs and game design

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high heels

I really felt that I said everything I wanted to say about the demon hunter and her boots last weekend, but it was a post that seems to have struck a nerve. Also it’s way past time I highlighted some of the great blogs who have linked to me recently, whether I agree with the writers or not

It’s completely trivial and a waste of our time to discuss and we should be doing something more productive with our time, and at the same time it’s extremely important that no changes be made and extreme effort needs to be made to ensure everyone knows how much of a big deal this totally isn’t.

Klepsacovic considers sexy characters in games and gives examples of female characters he considers sexy. OK, I admit it, I thought Anders was hot! Tortured blonde academic types with a soft spot for animals/ helping people clearly do it for me :P (Actually I do find kindness to be a very sexy quality in guys, especially if they’re otherwise quite tough.)

What other players think

And finally, I wondered what the beta community thought of the demon hunter look in general so I checked out the official forums. This is a thread where players are discussing whether they intend to play the male or female demon hunter. I’ve tried to pick out some of the comments where people specifically mentioned the heels, sexiness, or badassness. I hadn’t realised the male demon hunter was a controversial model but clearly he brought out the ‘blood elves are gay’ faction.

female cause she’s looking so sexy

Female obviously. The male char looks ridiculous.

what would i rather see? a hot chick in tight leather, or a dude in tight leather? obvious answer, no trolls plz

My obvious answer is probably not the same as his obvious answer.

Male with bow just pure badass, im just hoping most of the head slot armor will be hood-alike.

Female is my choice. I think the female DH is the most badass DH :D

really depends on what toon im playing,but most of the times i prefer males. They just looks tougher and the gear pieces more shiny and biggie :D

Van Helsing? Male of course.

Probably male. I really don’t like the high-heels on the female =/

I’m not going to play a character with metal stilettos *ugly*

Male, ’cause of the resemblance to Van Helsing.

Not really getting the Van Helsing references, did Hugh Jackman really look like that in the film?

The female Demon Hunter is by far the worst from all classes, looks so cheap like it comes straight out from chinese mmos.

The female avatar looks awesome in her heels.

Female, because she looks a lot better than the male, i find that the male looks quite feminine

I dont know but high heels are downgrading to me

I`m all about being a sexy Demon Hutress wering high heels , dual wielding Xbows and having a charming scarf

Yup, co-ordinated (yet charming) accessories are what demon hunting is all about!

Male all the way, cant stand the females high heels

Male DH here. Seems way more badass than the female one ;)

Female for sure – you seen them high heels on them boots !?

Male! I dislike the animation of females, plus the male voice is nice :)

Male, because I think he looks cool, has nice animations and a good voice. :)

That’s a fair point, the male demon hunter voice was great. No one commented on the female voice.

Male looks kind of gay and also picking female just feels right

But isn’t it nerdy to be a female.. i mean she is half naked xD

Male because females are not appropriate for hunting, especially demons.

Male, everything about the Demon Hunter class screams a Male character to me…this isn’t helped by the fact the female DH looks stupid and terrible with ugly armour and silly artwork. <…> Leave the women to classes like Mage and Monk, Demon Hunting is a mans game.

“Demon hunting is a man’s game” – best comment ever?

diablo is not really an rpg and male looks are … unsetting … so yea female DH

Male. At first I was going for female due to male’s buttfugly hair, but after I saw those damned high-heels and her beyond stupid crossbow and bow animations I decided to roll male. <….> females animations just scream: “I’m dumb wench who just got her first bow and I have no idea what I am doing!”

i’d choose male since DH will be my first choice, but he is thin and skinny.. So my vote goes to sexy high heels

male-DH just feels wrong to me even tho there is absolutely nothing wrong about him. Okay, he might remind some of us of Male Elves from WoW or look a little emo/gay, what have you, but that’s just subjective perception.

Seriously, they got it right with an alluringly scrumptious female demon hunter.

OK, what I take from this is that the character designs on this class are quite controversial, with several people saying that they changed their mind after seeing them. (Which is interesting because in the actual game, your character is very tiny.) The heels in particular do get singled out; some people think they’re sexy and awesome, others that they are ugly, degrading or silly. There’s no doubt in my mind that the artists could have drawn the character in a less polarising way.

The comments about her look being silly or stupid are interesting too. Those aren’t qualities that most players want in their characters (although there’s definitely a place for silly in games.) And ‘degrading’ is even stronger language than that. But for some players, a female character who looks highly sexualised is automatically also less competent.

I’m particularly intrigued by the person who said they thought it was nerdy to play half naked female characters. Actually all the female characters in D3 are half naked at the start, but I figure he’s talking about half naked in an overly sexualised, “Hello Boys!” kind of way.